For a number of years there has been an awareness of a need for automatic stacking of agricultural products at the point of collection, or harvesting. The automatic stacking of the products allow for a single equipment operator to easily harvest a large volume of produce. These harvested stacked products must be of course transported from the field in a form which allows easy transportation to distributors and end consumers. Palletized skids are therefore often used for truck transport of these agricultural products from the field to centralized distribution points.
The automated agricultural operations require the continuous packaging of a large number of such produce during any particular work shift. As such, typical agricultural operations require movement, positioning and temporary storage of large numbers of such stackable pallets at the harvesting location. Substantial distances causes problems for the movement and repositioning of both full and empty pallets or containers. Typically, empty storage pallets are moved by the farm worker into scattered positions about the harvesting locations where they can be filled either by hand or automated equipment. Due to the size and weight of these empty storage containers, significant ergonomic problems have arisen. Auto loading pallets eliminates the loss productivity and operator annoyance associated with getting out of the tractor cab each time a fresh pallet is required. Auto-stacking sod harvesters have been on the market for some time. One presently available commercial machine utilizes a stack of pallets located behind the area where the sod is loaded onto the pallet. When the pallet is full it is dropped to the ground and the sod harvesting machine pulls ahead leaving the filled pallet behind. When the machine has moved far enough ahead, a pallet dispenser pushes the bottom pallet from a stack of pallets onto the forks of the machine and another pallet proceeds to be loaded with rolls of sod.
There are several disadvantages to this method. The stack of pallets needs to be stored high enough in the air over the vehicle to clear a full pallet of sod, thus causing a high machine center of gravity. Further, the height makes it difficult to reach the pallet dispenser if it is necessary to hand load pallets into the dispenser. The height also means the vehicle's forks must be configured to regularly raise beyond where they would be for normal loading to accept an empty pallet, thus requiring the operator to stop harvesting operations while the pallet loads. This disrupts productivity. Additionally, having the dispenser behind the sod loading area contributes at least the length of the pallet to the overall length of the machine, making it less stable and maneuverable. These less maneuverable machines are harder to operate, particularly in smaller sod fields where more turnarounds are required to harvest a given area of sod. Furthermore, a long machine may require outrigger wheels to hold up the extended mechanism. Such wheels require spring loading of the wheel or hinging of the machine to allow travel over undulations and contribute extra complexity.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide an agricultural product container storage and delivery system which facilitates the delivery of fresh pallets or empty containers to an agricultural field as needed. It is also desirable to provide such a system which enables empty pallets or containers to be similarly transported to a desired location without operator or continuous service vehicle assistance. It is further desirable to provide such a system which stores empty agricultural produce containers as desired and which facilitates the storage, delivery, positioning and removal of a sufficient number of such containers to obviate the need for supplemental vehicle intervention over the entire work shift. It is also desirable to provide a system which enables agricultural workers to place containers within harvesting equipment as needed.